Holding A Tiger By The Tail
by nogreateragony78
Summary: An undercover mission gone horribly, stupidly wrong, an Imperial secret too long in the keeping, and now they're all just scrambling to make the broken pieces fit together again.
1. Confrontations

Chapter 1: Confrontation

"I'm sorry." Ezra's voice cuts through the taut stillness of the locked room. "I wish I had better to give you, Kanan, I really do. I know that those words coming out of my mouth are probably the last thing in the entire kriffing Galatic Rim that you want to hear. But right now they're all that I've got: one of the two truths left that circumscribe my present galaxy. So I'm. Karking. Sorry. Kanan. Jarrus. I just wanted to make that absolutely clear."

"Ezra, let me out of this room." Kanan's voice it tight, but the pressure in his mind isn't panic. Instead, his whole body feels like the leading edge of an oncoming thunder storm: a slow-moving wave of building power and fury. It is in both of their interests for his Padawan to let him out of here, and *quickly*, before he loses his temper and cracks open the festering magma chamber in his chest irreversibly.

"I wouldn't even if I could, Master. Which I can't at the moment." Ezra's voice is soft – apologetic, but it's also eerily clear. The voice of someone who knows that his last dance at the Great Ball is done and over, and now it's time to settle up with the piper. Kanan's *not* unaware of the irony of his brain attaching to that particular analogy.

"Chopper's the only one with the passcode to this place right now, Kanan. The only one who specifically even knows where we are beyond 'out clearing the air.' Hera provided the shuttle that got you here, yeah, but then that's hardly surprising, given how often she's been hinting that it is time for us to talk. Still, she more condoned than arranged any of the specifics of this."

Kanan can hear booted footsteps coming toward him, where he currently stands in the warehouse's double wide entrance– Ezra takes another deep breath before he speaks again, sounding weary and apologetic beyond his twenty years. "I'm also sorry this took so long for me to arrange, Master, given how much we both know you've been hurting and how badly it was needed. If I could've I would've figured out a way arrange for this sooner. But then I guess we both know we don't always get what we want from this life. Hell, that's just being alive in general, in my personal experience."

Kanan hears the light rustle of fabric then - of something heavy but soft landing on the cement floor to his Padawan's left. It's probably the new winter coat that Hera keeps trying to shove the kid into whenever he manages to leave the Ghost ever since they returned to Lothal, even though there is no need for Ezra to wear it on planet this far into spring. It always makes Hera feel better when Ezra puts it on, though, and so he wears it without struggle or comment when Hera's there to pester him. It is, Kanan knows, just one of several dozen small ways that the Kid keeps asking forgiveness, when he didn't bother to ask permission.

Frankly the meekness implied in the constant gesture on Ezra's part makes Kanan want to put a boot in his ass.

Hera'd been terrified at first, after both of Ezra's bilateral kidney transplants had been successful, of post-surgical infection or the onset of organ rejection. That worst case scenario hadn't occurred, thank Force…probably because they'd been able to clone with tissue from his own badly lacerated organs, but it doesn't make his lover's lingering paranoia about such things happening feel any less. The last nine months after all have been absolutely brutal for all of them.

There's the further squeaky sound of leather and rubber a dozen meters out in front of him as his Padawan bends down to - wait a minute - is he actually untying and removing both of his shoes like they're in some kind of common training salle? The kid speaks without looking up from his boots as he continues untying them.

"So – just for the record, they cleared me in medical two days ago –" One boot and then the other skids with a screech across floor, thudding into the wall closest to Kanan's left side. "And I'm supposed to officially report back to active duty at ten a.m. on Monday morning: Though I'm not sure to which squadron yet. Apparently, there are a few folks in Command Staff still arguing with eachother over that particular subject..."

Before Ezra can finish his sentence Kanan finds himself in motion - rushing forward with a strength and speed he doesn't even consciously process as he catches his Padawan with a fist in the fabric of his tunic and slams the younger man into the nearest bulkhead.

"How. Dare. You." Kanan literally shakes the twenty year old- his face and voice a maelstrom of grief, fear and anger...

"Kanan…"

Ezra tries again.

He slams him again. "How. Force. Karking. Dare. You. Ezra Bridger!"

Kanan's breath is heaving now in both terror and rage. For thirteen and a half months he had thought – they had thought that Ezra was *lost*…

"How dare you do what you did to all of us - to me!"

Actually technically speaking it had been even longer than thirteen months, if Kanan were to go strictly by numbers. It had been eighteen months now since his Padawan had first slipped away in the middle of the night and silently gone undercover, while Kanan and the rest of the Spectre crew had been left scrambling around in the dark - confused and gutted and ignorant to the reality of his Sith damned *top secret mission.* Left to a rebellion command staff that hadn't known or had chosen to say nothing.

And now eight and half weeks after his real mission had been out, six weeks after they'd recovered his dying body from a filthy hotel room two critical major surgeries to save his life later - now was when Ezra was finally apologizing for what had happened!?

"How. Dare. You." Kanan growls the words yet again.

"I'm Sorry, Master." Ezra's voice is soft – apologetic as he repeats the entreaty. It's not enough. Not after the sheer hell that the group of them have all been through in the last year and a half. Not after the way that Hera cried, and Sabine had destroyed several of her most treasured personal paintings, not after Kanan's own grasp on both his hope and his sanity had slowly splintered under the agony like a weak pane of spider-webbing glass.

Force, Kanan's still so angry – so wrecked, that his arms are literally shaking with the emotion. He shakes his padawan briefly like a ragdoll. Ezra just accepts it limply. "Do you have *any idea*, what we all thought, Ezra? When you just disappeared and the rumors started circulating they'd found a vessel with your lightsaber still on board adrift in space. Do you grasp what you nearly let those *morons* take away from all of us?"

"Yes. I do. That's why we're *here* Kanan. Because I know exactly what I did and what it meant to the rest of you. And now you… need to do whatever it is you need to do to settle up my tab so you'll be able to move on – before you literally drown in your own anger. I screwed up Kanan, and I know it, and I deserve whatever it is you think that I have coming so take your best karking shot already. Settle up and get us both free of this mess."

And Kanan pulls him back slightly, slams him back against the wall harder. Because this? This force damned disregard for danger? Ezra's complete ease with the concept of using himself as both the sacrificial altar and its almost inevitable victim? *This is the problem.* This is what led all of them to this moment in the first place.

So Kanan goes for explicit: tries to use slow and simple words, because really what does he have to lose any more as he finally lets the fury bubble up and out of his chest, accompanying each burst of words with a harsh shove of Ezra's back against the ceramacrete behind him as Kanan speaks - no outright hisses - the next words at him.

"Stop being -thump!- so damn careless -thump!- with the life of -thump- my Padawan, Ezra Bridger! -thump! thump!- Stop endangering – thump- And devaluing.-thump!- my kid!"

Force now he's practically hyperventilating he's so incandescently livid, but if he could be Kanan would also probably be *weeping* right now - and apparently he's no longer alone in that extremity of emotion. Ezra is crying as well- silently, and like his own heart is either similarly broken or breaking. Well good: that means that he's *finally* got his Padawan's undivided attention for sure. It's time then, to put it to good use - because as outside his norm as this side of his temper normally is, Kanan is *not* living through this kind of nightmare again.

So he moves into Ezra even more - close enough that the two of them are nearly standing nose to nose - until he can feel the slow in and out exhalation of every puff of Ezra's ragged breathing, and when he speaks his words are in equal measures both a promise and a threat. "Pull that kind of banthashit ever again within my arm's reach, Kid and I will literally *whup your ass*. You'll go back on active duty when you're dead! Do you get me, Ezra?! Or do I need to try and say it in another couple damn languages? Because I can if I have to. I know at least seven."

"We're clear." Ezra gasps out. "I hear you, Kanan. I understand and like I said, I'm sorry. I just…there weren't any other viable options when I left. I just couldn't find any functional way around it. My departure was necesssary."

Kanan drops him to the ground, ice in his lungs freezing over at the comment. "You actually mean that." He says and he can also feel it in his gut and his chest . Beneath Ezra's guilt, there's a deeper undercurrent of conviction - of assurance that Ezra had been right to leave, had been *justified* in doing it. That feeling of moral righteousness in his Padawan is absolutely steadfast and terrifying because of what it almost certainly means. There is something big here none of the rest of the Ghost crew understand yet. Something lurking in the shadow's just waiting to pounce on all of them again.

"Yes." His padawan's voice is still scratchy with tears, but his tone is unapologetic. "It was necessary. I'm sorry that it happened, Kanan, and sorry that it hurt you all so much. But I would absolutely go back and do it all again if I were to find myself in the same position again."

Kanan growls low in his throat then because there's only one thing for him *to* say in a moment like this. He points a demanding finger. "You have exactly five seconds, Kid, to open your mouth and start spilling like you should have from the first. And I mean everything Ezra. Absolutely everything." His Padawan has got five seconds maximum to start using the sense he should have used from the very beginning.

"I have a brother." Ezra speaks so quietly that Kanan almost can't hear him to begin with. Then he murmurs, "And he's truth two at the moment."

"What?" Kanan asks the question more to verify he'd heard it at all than for any request for more volume or greater clarification.

"I. have. a. brother." Ezra repeats. His knees are pulled up to his chest now, his face more than half buried in his arms. "Major Sanders…the guy who recuited me into the role on Corellia...he got me on board in the first place by coming to me with incontrovertible proof of both his potential endangerment and his existence."

"Proof?" Kanan repeats.

"Imperial birth records." Ezra chokes, "And a couple delivery room pre and post birth monitoring videos. Baby boy Bridger, birth parents Mira and Ephraim, incarcerated political prisoners of the Empire. He was born almost two years before the escape attempt that ultimately caused both of my parents' deaths."

Kanan's brain literally reels at the news, upright dominoes in his mind suddenly collapsing downward loudly into new and totally different spreads and configurations, but Ezra hasn't stopped talking, instead he has his hand up and clenched in his hair and he's trying to regulate his ragged breathing as he continues speaking. "They took him from them at birth and he was shoved directly into the Imperial fostering system. They didn't even let them give him a *name,* Kanan. I have no clue what to even *call* him which is driving me insane. He - his Midiclorian levels were noted at birth as elevated just like mine probably were apparently - I know my parents got mine removed from the system, and he was flagged for further testing between ages five and seven. He's about five and a half now.

Ezra gulps in a deep breath, raising his face at last. " That's *why* I…" He shakes his head, "Sanders said if I made it into the topmost tier of the Imp Data group on Corellia with my cover still intact then I'd likely get database access at a high enough priority to find out where they sent him after he was taken from the prison. I couldn't save my parents but I have a *brother* Kanan and I have to try and find him…"

Of course Ezra does. That's just the nature of the whole situation. And Kanan doesn't doubt for a second that the banthashit Sanders knew it. It doesn't make Ezra's agreement to take the job any less stupid, mind you, but it does make it more…understandable? He'd been a victim of straight of tactical psychological manipulation. "Why didn't you come to the rest of us with this right from the start. We would have helped you." Ezra had to have known that. He had to.

"There was no time." Ezra all but groans. "Sanders warned me that there was a tight, tight window of opportunity for a post infiltration if I wanted to do it at all. I either went in right away while there was a slot open in one of the lower tiers or Imperial Data services would note the delay and there would be…a lot of unpleasantness. Which could have made it next to impossible for years to find another road in." Ezra draws in a deep breath again, lets it out, "My brother, Kanan. If his force potential really manifests and his latent force gifts start to swarm like mine did at around the same age - if someone from Inquisitorius or Imperial Security Forces were to catch wind of it-"

Force the kid is so worked up right now from fear of the possibilities of what could happen that he's nearly hyperventilating just thinking about all of them. Kanan reaches out to put a hand on Ezra's shoulder, applies a liberal burst of calming Force Suggestion, "Kid I need you to pause for a moment okay, and just take a deep breath." While Kanan tries for a moment to wrap his mind around their actual current situation.

Damn it if Major Sanders from IntServ were still alive at present then Kanan would be punching him right between the eyes, and then dragging the man's ass home to Hera. He's pretty sure that Phoenix Sqadron;s Captain would have had her own thoughts on how to justly handle this, and that it would have involved a multitude of small bloody pieces.

"What do we know from the information they've decoded from the data center so far?" Kanan's use of the world 'we' is emphasized and deliberate it this particular context. Damn right it's gonna be 'we' from here on out. This is unquestionably now *family business,* a point he's pretty sure he literally just pounded right into the kid's stubborn head.

"I was able to trace the records right before …before I got myself out of the Data Center about 9 weeks ago. My brother went from the prison medlab to a foster placement service that also arranges long term guardianships for wards of the Empire with less than a day." Ezra finally lifts his head from his knees, draws a deep breath, and continues speaking. "As I said I'm supposed to be reporting for duty on Monday, Kanan, but as soon as I do I'm only going to be staying long enough to turn in my immediate resignation. Because as soon as passage can possibly be safely arranged back into the Imperial Core, I have to get to Capitol City and that Service's main offices on Coruscant."

Kanan growls down at him in response, bearing his teeth just a little. "Rethink your pronouns there, Kid, regarding who's going to be involved in this little ongoing rescue mission, unless you're actively looking for the round two of this talk previously mentioned.."

"Hey, at least I'm giving fair warning this time. You've gotta at least give me that much, Kanan."

"The only thing I'm going to give you if you keep talking so stupid, Ezra is a kick to the *ass.* You are not going to Capital City...or anywhere in the central planet belts alone again while we sit and twiddle our thumbs waiting for you to stumble back home with a five year old. The rest of us are all getting a choice on whether or not we will be coming with you."

"It's CORUSCANT Kanan. Not a waltz down to the corner store. You're all needed here. Hera kriffing commands Phoenix squadron. Sabine's got responsibilities to her mom right now...You guys can't just up and leave like me with no real warning for no good reas…"

Kanan puts a hand over his mouth, cutting of the rest of his protest completely. "Kid think very, very carefully about how much you value my calmness before you finish that sentence. And then maybe just stop talking completely."

Ezra, wisely on his part, obeys.

Kanan reaches down then to grab him by the shoulders then, and Ezra's teeth rattle with the force of how hard his master shakes him for about ten to fifteen seconds. "Let me be explicitly clear here, Kid. *You are not kriffing asking us to come along as if it's your decision instead of ours what we are going to do next."

There is no Sith spawned way that this kid – whose scars from his healing surgeries are still newly healed light pink -is going to go sibling hunting in the Imperial Capital alone. Hera and Kanan wouldn't allow that kind of insanity to occur on even Ezra's most rational and well argued of days. And today after his Padawan has just literally let Kanan bludgeon him into a wall as both an apology and a likely attempt to say goodbye before going on what may well be a suicide mission?

Yeah no. Ezra's current plan is *not* happening.

"How long exactly until Chopper comes back to let us out of here?"

Ezra blinks. "An hour or two I think."

"Fine. Then we're seeing if this place has water in the meantime, we're both getting a glass if it does, and then you're sitting and telling me everything you know, Ezra. And I mean everything."

It's only wise, Kanan knows, that he starts putting together a mental tactical file as quickly as possible, to better help prepare for the unavoidable briefing. Because no way in karking hell, he knows as well as he knows how to breathe, are Rex or the rest of Specter Crew going to be sitting out on this newly emerging mission.


	2. Conversations and Wolf Naps

Kanan and Hera discuss Ezra's little secret and its present and future likely ramifications. Ezra meanwhile gets a much needed wolf-nap.

Chapter Text

Kanan's been trying for almost ten minutes now to fill Hera in on the revelations of he and Ezra's warehouse smack down turned conversation. So far though, the effort's mostly involved long strings of Ryl ephithet and other forms of various forms pacing and or swearing. Kanan has to acknowledge that he doesn't blame her for any of the above the slightest bit.

He can't say he's inclined to too much kinder responses himself, now that the initial shock has worn off and he's had time to process the situation in full: to understand not only what but how and why everything that's gone on recently has happened to all of them in the way that it has.

He's also secretly deeply, deeply relieved that Major Andre Sanders is already dead, because if he were otherwise right now pretty much the whole of Specter Crew excluding Ezra would have found the man's presence both a grating reality and a dangerous temptation.

Yavin's a big place with lots of room to hide bodies, frankly speaking.

Then again, he acknowledges a little wryly, watching as his lover pivots for the tenth time in as many minutes in her now well-worn track of angry swearing, it might have at least been handy for him to have someone smackable whom he could have thrown at her when they started this talk…just for the sake of catharsis. Because if Hera doesn't stop and inhale between words occasionally sometime soon, she's either going to asphyxiate on her own rage or mutate a set of backup gills.

He's glad now, watching her pace up and down that he'd decided to leave Ezra under the watchful eyes of Sabine and Chopper for the duration of this conversation. The kid already looks and feels like a whipped dog after the past couple of hours conversation at the warehouse and Kanan kind of doubts that his Padawan would have been able to handle another 'reveal' talk at this point either physically or emotionally. The kid is worn down enough by his hyper-panicked mind as it is.

Right now what Ezra needs more than anything else is probably eighteen hours uninterrupted sleep - even if it requires a sedative or a knock to the head for him to get it. Not that Kanan is inclined to think that his Padawan will slow down long enough to register said sedative's effects unless someone literally kriffing sits on him.

Uncorking the bottle of previously hoarded mission details while they'd sat waiting for Chopper to come and set them free from the warehouse they'd been locked up in had done nothing good at all for Ezra's general levels of personal agitation. If anything, it had been the emotional equivalent of pumping the kid full of a couple of double doses of stims.

"I am going to kill him." Hera has wound back around in her rant from Ryl to Basic again. "I know that he's already dead Kana, but I'm going to find a way to resurrect him, and then I'm going to hang him up by his intestines. What in kark Sanders he think he was doing?!"

"Getting what he wanted from an easily manipulated target?"

"That has to be the most unethical underhanded recruitment tactic I've ever heard of! I mean it was essentially blackmail in essence, except Ezra hadn't even done anything that could actually be used against him! The threat was more harm to a total innocent!

Kanan opts to be devil's advocate for a moment- not because he agrees with what he's about to say but because he knows that sooner or later Hera's going to be yelling about all of this to someone in general command staff, and if they don't want to attend a funeral afterwards then it's best that she get out the worst of her initial reaction via someone who is thick skinned and can deflect her temper in these moments as easily as he can.

"I'm guessing Sander's figured he was in the clear because technically Ezra was eighteen by that point, and the honey trap he used was legitimate. Ezra had been an active member of Phoenix squadron for two years by then, and he'd been approached and agreed to assist on several other interdepartmental missions by that point in time..."

"I don't care if Ezra was eighteen or if he was eighty. It was a blatantly morally bankrupt course of action. There's not a person on this kriffing base by now short of the newest of the newbies who don't know about Ezra's parents or the circumstances under which he lost them. What did that man THINK Ezra was going to do in response to being told that he had an endangered sibling under those circumstances? Turn down the assignment and then send out birth announcements?! Stay here while the months ticked down and start setting up a kriffing nursery?! He was going to do whatever he thought it took in order to get said sibling back."

Kanan rubs at an eyebrow. "Actually, I'm doing the math right, Hera the kid is actually be going to be turning either six any day now."

Which puts Ezra's younger brother at nearly the same age as Ezra himself had been when he's lost his own folks actually, and oh isn't that just nauseatingly ironic. Kanan is thinking he may just help Hera with her research concerning non-dark side based means of resurrection.

There hadn't been that many buttons left to push where Ezra was concerned, as far as Kanan can see looking back. It had been skillfully arranged on Sanders part. Maybe just a little too skillfully: Kanan has some serious questions about the supposed vs actual objectives of Ezra's first mission when he got sent into that data center with almost no backup. Whatever else still lurked in those datafiles had yet to be decoded yes, but Kanan was laying odds that it was far from insignificant.

Because the tactics employed by the formerly Coruscantian Major hinted at an additional mission objective so ambitious it was damn near megalomaniacal or something so desperate and last resort it made the hair on the back of Kanan's neck stand on end.

WHAT exactly was in those data files Ezra had recovered that had been worth stacking the proverbial deck quite that liberally? Kanan doesn't know. But they are going to find just as soon as they possibly can, and then they're going to deal with it, because Kanan's literally sick to death of feeling like a rat trapped in Karabast maze being led around to meet other people's needs or specifications. He's tired on his loved ones being used like those same kind of rats as well, and he'll be damned if he'll see the same sorts of tactics used again on Ezra ever again in this lifetime. At least until he's sure the Kid has grown up enough and acquired sufficient psychological training to realize when he's being manipulated by such questionable tactics, and can correspondingly flip the table on anyone stupid enough to try such manipulative skullduggery on him.

Kanan, in short, doesn't know who to blame most for the current mess they're tracing, not with Sanders dead now and Command sketchy about both who he reported to and who reported to him exactly because of the Rebellion's less than perfect hierarchical system. The blame brush paints pretty wide – may in fact reach every single one of them in one way or another, if only because even though the Bridgers had been imprisoned for over a decade by the empire, he, Hera and the others in the upper ranks had never once considered whether that their mutual imprisonment might have actually led to an inevitable Bridger Family expansion if they were roomed together in the prison. They hadn't considered nor taken any steps to prepare Ezra to hear such news and not be traumatized.

Kanan sighs deeply, pushing aside the thought for the moment. "Look on the bright side of things, Hera. At least this time even as desperate as he is Ezra at least tried to clear the air before he took off on what amounts to a passive suicide run." Sure not exactly on purpose, maybe, but his Padawan hadn't been able to let the matter of Kanan's anger lie, nor had he been able to keep his real motives hidden from the rest of the Spectres. At least not without becoming a hell of a lot better bald-faced liar than his Padawan currently was. Ezra'd lost the deception game the moment his conscience forced him into trying to make amends and it got Kanan's mind back focused on understanding what had actually happened vs just assuming he in fact already grasped the situation.

Which means, Kanan acknowledges a little wryly, that it's probably a good thing he'd been doing so horribly at releasing his own emotions into the Force himself after Ezra's near death in the wake of his bloody mission extraction. After all, if they'd been on better terms Ezra might not have dealt with the situation with the same sense of 'heading back into the fire soon, Kanan' urgency.

The Force, as some say, works in mysterious ways when it comes to how it grants its children it's protection.

"So..." Hera draws a deep breath. "Where are we at, situationally and tactically speaking with all of this?"

"You mean beyond guard dogging Ezra's still half-crazed with panic as to make sure he doesn't anything stupid like giving us the slip to go chase alone after what he keeps referring to as his personal problem? We're busy scrapping up every resource and bit of Intel that we can possibly get ahold of concerning Coruscant' s current security patterns these days." Kanan shrugs his shoulders, "Oh and I'm also waiting for Zeb and Kallus to get back with Rex – who's up north at the training grounds at the moment. Because there's no way in Karl he isn't also going to want in on all of this."

Hera frowns deeply, her voice thick with worry. "Kanan, Love - how concerned are you about Ezra slipping away. Right now and doing something truly stupid? I mean I don't understand why he wouldn't be glad for the backup."

"Right now...on a scale between one and ten? The odds are he'll try and pop smoke on us like last time are at best about a two or a three. The kid is utterly exhausted, Hera, sore from our scuffle earlier, and though he's not saying it aloud, relieved as kriff to not have to be carrying around this mess all on his own anymore. Eighteen months is damn a long time for anyone to be shouldering the weight of this kind of a secret without ever being able to lay it down, even for a moment. He's under so much pressure right now psychologically I'm surprised he hasn't literally fallen through the floor. "

Hera frowns at that for a moment, then hesitantly continues speaking. "You know I'm actually a little paranoid at this point about how well he's seemed to be able to jeep his turmoil licked away and out of sight. I mean he's been back almost two months now Kanan and we didn't have a CLUE until your fight what has actually been driving him to pursue his recovery like some kind of a madman … I just thought he despised the hospital wing." "He does. But he was also waiting for his promised data from IntServ as well from What he told me. It took them awhile to crack the codes to the data which he'd been promised." "What I want to know, Kanan, is who in the decoding office has been providing him information at all, because there has to be someone checking in with him regularly or he'd have no clue where he should be going. He had to have had one or more regular visitors well in hospital and we had to have somehow missed their visits entirely. Which is quite a feat. He's almost constantly had one or more if us visiting since he first woke after the transplants."

Kanan's smile is fierce. "Yes. I'm aware, and I'm already trying to find out if they keep visitor logs for his time in the med wing that can help us sort that out. In the meantime be warned, Hera- Ezra's NOT happy that we'll be coming to Coruscant. Mostly he says because We're needed more here and it's too risky for a whole team capture should we get caught while trying to help him."

"Yeah well he can just join suck it up, Love. Cause I can't say I'm much happier either that HE'LL be going to a Core world at all, much less karking Coruscant. You and Ezra are literally the last two people in literal creation that I want anywhere near the Imperial Palace right now! I understand why he's freaked out, why he has to get the tracking still…" She blows out a disgruntled grunt through her lips. "You're not going to convince me that sending in a non-force sensitive wouldn't be far less risky generally speaking.

Kanan shrugs, "I actually agree with you there. Unfortunately, this is the only lead Ezra's got and there's no way he'd ever voluntarily turn away from the trail. At this point, he'll follow it like a bloodhound even if it leads him straight into hell itself because the alternative is to sit on his heels and go completely karking crazy. It's not as if he or that bastard Sanders was even entirely wrong about the current urgency of the present situation. Especially if his brother's actually powerful enough in the Force for some of his Force Talents to start exhibiting themselves at this age like Ezra claims his own gifts did between the ages of 4-7. No matter how much the idea of that kind of early emergence seems unlikely to me."

Hera sighs again, reaching up to massage the back of her neck muscles. "Are we even sure that this boy's actually Force-sensitive at all, Kanan? Could Sanders have doctored the records regarding that fact just to try and escalate Ezra's sense of urgency and make him more likely to take the mission?"

"Are we 100 percent certain? No. But his midiclorian levels were high enough to merit flagging at birth – that much is mentioned on the post-birth tapes. Which is a bit unusual." He shakes his head "It just wasn't all that common of a thing even in the busiest days of the creche for toddlers to show much more than heightened empathy that early. Sure, Ezra's a kriffing supernova when you know how to look for him in the force. But even if he turns out to represent a statistical outlier in terms of his power levels I still wouldn't be shocked if there's another force user eventually linked to his parents or other extended families with a few generations. Especially not on a planet that has an old if mostly abandoned Jedi temple actually present."

Hera raises an eyebrow at that. "And what does a temple on the planet have to do with anything in terms of whether Ezra and his brother are Force Sensitive?"

Kanan shrugs "It's a simple matter of human nature, Hera. Just because the Order forbids permanent attachments doesn't mean it's always been that way or that all its members followed that dictate as well as expected of them - there are always the stragglers who fell in love and or just got upset with the leadership that was in power at the time and so they walked away, as well as the nearly unavoidable handful of illegitimate children almost always emerge from nonpermanent attachments shared with members of the outside community that resulted in unremarked conceptions. There's a few of those statistically speaking in almost every generation..."

"So then what You're saying is that Ezra's brother could be what...up to as strong as Ezra is...?"

"Unlikely but possible, yes. Though I hope to Force he isn't. Hera because if he's as strong as Ezra is at his age than he'll likely be showing his gifts to some extent ...which if they've been noticed could massively complicate the difficulty of any eventual extraction. Or could be much lower powered...and show more potential with more training as he ages, like my creche-mates and I did when we were young. That's was I'm hoping we'll find waiting for us honestly."

"You make it sound like Ezra's...pardon my way of putting this, a bit of a freak, Kanan even by the Jedi's high potentials standards. You've commented before that he's usually powerful and quick to learn but..."

Kanan laughs harshly: he can't help doing so at this point. He reaches up to rub his eyes. "Yeah well, I've generally tried not to dwell on it or talk about it to him too much because in our lives now there's never been much point in making those kinds of comparisons. It's just the two of us." "But He's unusual?" "Force Yes! Hera, if he'd been found at age fifteen and brought to the Temple to meet the Council before the war period? They would have never agreed to voluntarily train him, Hera. They'd have said He's too dangerous. Force, there are probably some Jedi whom after meeting him would have strongly advocated for his humanely arranged elimination. They would have been refused but they'd have brought it up privately"

Hera chokes on that news. "Excuse me? What? They would have wanted to kill him?! But why, Kanan? Sure he was a little messed up when he first came aboard but with his past who in kriff wouldn't have been. He just needed support and stability to start getting past it!"

"I know. But they would have seen him as profoundly dangerous as well as profoundly damaged. Because he's just that powerful, Hera. Was even before we started the Jedi training I gave him. Not to mention whether he admitted it then or now the kid still struggles with anger even on his best days...unsurprisingly given what He's experienced and seen. What's more, Ezra is certainly not inclined to trust anyone or bow to other people's authority or philosophies blindly just because someone says That he should. That would not have made him someone the Jedis would have seen as an ideal candidate for further training because even if he hadn't fallen he would have been almost destined to go rogue and take others with him because of his charisma eventually."

"And I get that Kanan, I really do. I can see how have been seen as a threat to the status quo. But to kill him for just existing Kanam? With what justification exactly? How cod any of the Jedi have claimed such a move would be alright?"

"The needs of the many vs the needs of the dew," Kanan shrugs, then sighs heavily "most likely those pushing the idea forward would have seen Ezra as an explosion or implosion just waiting to happen down the road as he aged if he fell into the wrong kind of company. Diffuse the bomb before it goes off, and there's much less threat of injury."

"And who would they have considered the right company if they wouldn't have wanted anything to do with him?! Honestly Kanan!"

Kanan makes a face of clear discomfort. "I already know that. Look the order was never perfect Hera - not by a long shot. I never once claimed that it was. There was a reason over the past thousand years our numbers were steadily shrinking instead of growing, even after so many internally started philosophical and political renaissances. I was really too young to have studied the topic much before Order 66 came down...mostly it just came up in various discussions between Depa and I while we were deployed in the field, but by the end of the war with the Separatists our already low numbers had been so severely depleted in all the fighting, that there was already a change occurring internally regarding the long-term survivability of certain previously unbendable precepts of thought."

"So what – you're saying is some of the Jedi would have wanted Ezra dead before the war and more of them would have ultimately accepted his humanness after, not because he was a kid or even a person but because they had more need of force users in his generation and would have granted him more leeway because of it?"

"Yes. Because they were more desperate and thus less arrogant and prone to focus on statistics over individual people's choices or stories. Once some of them had gotten to know Ezra personally they would have embraced him eventually as 'one of us.' But I would have caught ten kinds of hell for promising to train him even in the best of circumstances."

Hera shakes her head. "You know, I'm not sure I would have liked this order of yours if I'd ever seen that side of it Love. As much as I hate to say it. And I can't imagine how you'd have ever been happy in that organization. "

"Caleb would have been all right there not knowing any different. Kanan on the other hand," he shrugs, "Would probably have had a small nervous breakdown then fled the Temple for the Outer Rim with the kid.: He shakes his head. "It's all water under the Bridge now either way-and hell not really relevant to our present conversation. It's too easy to get mired down in what it's instead of looming at there here and now. Which is finding Ezra's brother. Force even if the kid turns out to be just as strong as Ezra - which I highly doubt, he still won't be like Ezra. Because he'll never have had to be completely in charge of his own life and safety. As Ezra said He's probably been temporarily or permanently fostered out to an 'appropriate guardian.' Whatever that happens to mean. He may have some damage depending on what his early childhood has been like, but assuming his guardian has been reasonably humane and competent in his raising, he'll still just be a five or six-year-old kid who'll eventually adapt to having a new family and grow where he's planted. Assuming we can recover him quickly, which," He sighs, "Is no doubt a good part of why we need to keep an eye on Ezra right now. He knows better than anyone at this point what's really at stake concerning his brother's future at the moment. And though he's trying to pretend he's not emotionally compromised by everything that's happened he's frankly not capable of being completely rational about his vs his brother's best interests. At the moment"

"And we are? More rational about it all, I mean?" Hera's voice is skeptical.

"We're at least less immediately compromised than he is at present." Kanan supplies bluntly. "I mean if he's reached the point where he seriously considers the idea of me beating him up in order to make me feel better an acceptable form of penance for what we lived through before we found out the truth from Rex and rescued him. The kid needs a refresher on the proper scope of an apology."

Hera winces. "For what it's worth, Kanan, I had no idea what it was he was actually planning when Chopper dragged you out there. None of us did really, or I'd have never lent him and Chopper the shuttle in the first place. I just...something had to be done about the situation between the two of you. I mean I was getting stress headaches just from the sheer noise level of all the things you weren't even saying." She draws a deep breath, "Maybe I should have been more direct about it but I thought what he had in mind when he said he'd take you somewhere and give you a chance to clear the air that that meany…oh, I don't know, a little sparring, a lot of yelling and a couple flocks worth of eaten crow, essentially. You normally don't..."

"I don't get that kind of mad." Kanan responds back candidly.

Hera nods, you really, really don't Live. At least not often or for that long, in my admittedly limited experience. I didn't know. You were angry enough to actually..." she lets the words die off, simply shrugging.

"Ezra knew," Kanan taps his own temple meaningfully. "Probably from the moment he woke up in the hospital after his surgery when we first came in and took shifts sitting with him."

"Which explains why since that point we've been living with a whipped puppy, basically? He's been showing you his throat?"

Kanan snorts at the comment. "Essentially yes."

"Thank kriff." Hera mutters. "And is that behavior now going to stop since your argument is finished? Because I have to tell you, Kanan, that I'm frankly creeped out by the deference and overall lack of sarcasm. It's been like we've been living with a pod person. And I'd much prefer the actual Ezra Bridger reappear sometime soon. Even if it requires more regular exposure to his sarcasm. "

Kanan shrugs, "I can't say for certain if he'll switch back at this point or not - we'll see what happens after he's gotten eight hours actual sleep. Because as I said He's pretty much fried out all of his circuits at the moment, psychologically speaking anyway. And I have no idea what changes We're seeing are only temporary and which ones are going to stick."

"You think He's really been changed that much already by everything that's happened?"

Kanan draws a deep breath. "I just know that eighteen months deep undercover without any real karking support or a pre-arranged plan for reintegration afterward is going to have serious consequences, Hera. To say nothing of how easy it is for anyone alive to lose sight of who they are in high-stress high-risk situations. Kanan shrugs his shoulders, "True. right now Ezra's more likely struggling with anxiety than anything else..as well as a little PTSD, but there's still hope that he'll start acting like his normal self if we start treating him relatively normally instead of continuing to walk around on eggshells like we have been."

"So what you're saying is when I see him I should yell, hug him until his ribs crack and then ground him for the next couple decades?"

Kanan's smile is wry. "That might be a little overkill, but yes essentially. No bruising him up further though..he's going to need to be fully healed by the time we reach Coruscant."

"Fine." Hera huffs, "Then he's back on KP and carbon scrapping rotation on the hull of the Ghost for at least half of the rest eternity." Hera throws up her hands. "Or until we find the Kid, at least. Kriff, Kanan. Six years old. That's practically a baby. It's certainly going to shake up everything around here significantly."

Kanan makes a pained face. "That's assuming that Ezra is going to want to stay on Yavin with us, Hera, instead of taking his brother and settling down elsewhere."

Hera jerks at that observation as if she's been slapped and Kanan sighs, "That's not an attack Hera, nor am I saying for sure that it will happen. It's just that... Well like it or not, in Ezra's own head at least he just commuted to becoming someone's parent. A young parent maybe, but there are younger out there then twenty. And raising a potentially Force Sensitive child in an ongoing war zone…hell, Ezra just being regularly in that war zone himself when he's the literal last of this kid's biological family. It may change a lot of his current perspective. Just don't get comfortable with the notion that things aren't going to significantly change from here on out. Because, I'm pretty sure that Ezra's kriffing exhausted already, Hera. He was long before he took the last mission or committed to finding his brother and rescuing him. Ezra was already one foot in one foot out even before administrative assholery cost him both of his kidneys. And with a child to care for full-time, something is eventually going to have to give."

Kanan shrugs his shoulders one more time, reaching out through the Force to check momentarily on his Padawan who appears to be in the common room…sleeping? Well, that's a little bit of progress at least. "Look Hera, Ezra is loyal, usually almost to a fault. Up until now our work with the resistance has always had him, by the emotional throat essentially speaking, but that doesn't mean he's not also intimately, personally aware of what a parent's sticking their necks can mean for the welfare of the young children left in their care if it all goes south. I expect Ezra may struggle to find a balance...may flounder in the attempt at least at first..."

"You think he's going to leave us here on Yavin," Hera says, a little breathless like she's just been punched in the solar plexus. "That he'll just take the boy if we recover him and what...go find somewhere anonymous to stay on some outer rim planet somewhere?"

"Oh no, he's as good as said outright that he'll at least try coming back to Yavin initially." Kanan grimaces painfully. " I'm more afraid of what he'll do when he's eventually forced to deal with reality?"

"Concerning?"

"The true amount of labor involved actual child-rearing and the way that because of that he won't be able to simply do and be everything that everyone else wants him to shoulder anymore if he wants to stay healthy and not burn himself out..."

"And what do you think is actually going to happen, Kanan? I'm not sure I understand where any of this is leading."

"To a breakdown if he's not careful to not overdo it. Hera, when it came down to – no, when it comes down to missions, to side jobs, to consulting, to practically anything and everything anyone in the Rebellion has ever asked Ezra to do, he rarely if ever says no and he almost always comes through, usually in a big way when his assistance is requested, which only boosts his reputation, and more and more people come asking for his help whether or not they really need it It's a vicious cycle really... one he simply won't be able to survive and still be a good parent. Unless I miss my guess one his brother's home the Kid is going to need either a really unfriendly bodyguard or a seriously pissy, unhelpful personal assistant, just to scare away all but the most important requests from LittleBridger and him."

Hera snorts at that image. "Well if you literally want the later we could easily nominate Sabine for a few weeks at least after we brief her on the issues at hand. She would drive off all but the most desperate pretty prejudicially."

Kanan pauses for a moment smirking at the thought involuntarily. "You know, that might even be worth suggesting, you know. Just to see both her and Ezra's inevitable reactions." He chuckles again, "If nothing else if she got official permission. To yell at other people on his behalf she'd probably have less incentive on a general basis to yell at him."

Hera nods, "Speaking of which, how do you think her and Zeb are going to react to finding out that Ezra has a kidnapped sibling? Calmness or explosion?"

"Either or both depending on their own attitudes at that point. Along with some variation of "Oh Force, we're all going to die: there are more, there are more of them!"

Hera thumps him in his right upper arm for that comment.

"How are you taking the news?"

"Sort of disconnectedly...but at some point that's probably going to turn from strangely emotionally disconnected to pissed. Probably the first time I get to meet said child in person. For the moment I would just really like the Bridger family to stop getting metaphorically knocked around like the Galaxy's reddest ever-headed stepchild."

Kanan absorbs this, then crosses his arms and tilts his head "I'm ...as wrong as this sounds on the surface, kind of happy for Ezra. I mean it was an awful way for Ezra to find out how he's back to having living blood kin, but on the other hand... You and I have always had each other, Zeb knows about his people's sanctuary. Sabine's working on reconnecting with her Clan. We're all family yes, but slowly that family has extended, while Ezra's always been the one since this story first started who's lost and lost and lost. He deserves to finally get to keep someone again. Even if right now it's just an ephemeral little brother whose name he doesn't even know yet.

"Well what are we going to call the Kid in the meantime, Love? Little Bridger? Junior? Because we'll need to call him something or it's going to incredibly confusing whenever we try to discuss the situation."

Kanan shrugs, "We'll have to ask Ezra what he prefers that we go with. Honestly, I've just been using The Kid over and over, while Ezra goes with 'my brother' on near hysterical repeat. Which would be fine if just the thought of the words didn't leave him so damn panicked and helpless. I don't know what's hurting him right now more, the fear his brother won't be okay Hera, or the hoping that he will be."

Hera squeezes his hand in hers, "Both, most likely. I wish I knew better what to do for or say to him to help him cope."

"I've been settling a lot for 'easy or 'breathe.'" Kanan shakes his head a little. "I'm surprised at this point he hasn't at least briefly glommed onto me for a hug. He normally does after an extended fight or estrangement between us finally ends."

"well, you've been a little angry, Kanan. He's probably still less than sure of his welcome right now. As we've joked before– on some levels Ezra essentially your average half-grown wolf cub at this stage of his life and your relationship. He probably isn't going to wander too close if he thinks that he'll only get snarled at or correctively forced to submit again. And you did just force him to tuck and show his belly….if that's the right analogy for your previous."

Kanan chuffs at that "I think that the better analogy is that he finally got to live through a grown-up variation of me whupping his ass, but I at least take your meaning."

"And did you reach out to him after that was done like you would have with an actual kid after you literally spanked them for misbehaving, Kanan, or did you tell him to keep away or clearly keep your distance? Or worse yet did you do neither distinctly enough for him to be sure What's acceptable, and leave him idling in neutral, because I'll tell you this much for all I joke some time about how Ezra is more Wolf than Boy, I honestly doubt there's anywhere in all of the creation more miserable for a beta to be then uncertain how or where to stand."

Kanan quirks his lips a little. "Then what do you suggest I do? Let him lick me under the chin? Go and hunt him down a bunny?" The question is supposed to be a joke, but Hera merely smacks his sternum again lightly. "You are not nearly as funny as you think you are. When he's better, Kanan - go ahead spar with him again and be liberal with the praise when he deserves it. Maybe offer him the option of a hug -make It explicit He's welcome to come close as long as he asks first. And afterward, take him and get something to eat together. Ezra's far from starved anymore but food will always be a huge association with safety and comfort for him. He associates a genuine sense of welcome with being fed and probably always will at least subconsciously. It's an easy way to let him know that The two of you are back on keel."

"...You're serious aren't you?" Kanan murmurs quietly after regarding her for a couple of long moments.

"Why wouldn't I be?" Hera replies after a moment, her tone genuinely confused by the question. "That's how Ezra's always been if you know how to look for it."

Kanan swallows hard, a little awkward at the baldness of that statement. Because suddenly the whole Ezra as a wolf metaphor really isn't so funny anymore. Not even as a semi-regular ongoing joke just between them. "You really think that he sees himself...like that? Like a wolf or a dog?" Like a wandering omega who's lost its first Pack, been adopted into another, and now has lingering concerns about its current status.

"Oh kriff no, Kanan. At least not consciously anyway. He probably hasn't ever made that metaphorical connection before we found him either or we would never have met at all because he'd have been working different kinds of jobs with a team beside him.. Though I'll never entirely understand how a kid that generally charismatic and people hungry didn't end up in a gang. Lucky us he took the lone wolf route instead until the day he stole our shiny new bone and instead of ripping his throat out you offered him temporary entrance to our nice cozy den."

"He didn't trust people enough to join a Gang, Hera. Plus he stole to eat but barring emergencies it sounds like he lived by his own honorable street code essentially."

"You're probably right there. Plus he probably didn't like the look of the available other Alphas even if any of them bothered to approach him. Which sort of makes sense. He knew what he'd tuck tail for, he just hasn't encountered an Alpha worthy of his deference yet."

"I'm...flattered. I think?"

Hera laughs, loud and honest. "You should be love, though to be honest who else was ever going to be able to keep up with him but you? Crazy powerful and sly as a fox when he needs to be, remember? Which sounds suspiciously familiar. You're probably the one 'wolf' in the galaxy he doesn't piss off or drive completely insane just by virtue of being, well, him."

Kanan chuckles at that softly, leaning forward to lightly peck her cheek."You're operating under the assumption he hasn't in fact driven me round the bend, Syndulla, which may well be a huge fallacy."

Hera snorts, leans in to rest her head against one of his arms, yawning a little. "You love the kriff out of that kid, Kanan. Don't even bother denying it to me. How often, after all, do you meet another human being who so effortlessly speaks your own internal dialect."

"Wouldn't be any point in denying it now, would there? After all I just I literally slammed him into a wall to get that particular point across less than six hours ago. Plus I maybe scared the literal Sith Spit out of everybody but Rex who was with us on the rescue boarding party when we went to Corellia to retrieve him from that hotel room"

Hera actually chuckles. "The rumors about that extraction have gotten a little wild, yes Dear One, since we got back to Yavin 4. I distinctly don't remember your body actually glowing with fire no matter what the shinies are claiming. Though maybe, *maybe* your clothes may have steamed just a little bit. But I'm going to choose to assume that that was just because of the rain and your lightsaber's residual heat.

"You're funny, Hera Syndulla. Really, really funny."

"So I've been assured. And Jedi Knights can have feelings. At least very occasionally."

"Vicious lies." He said with a sly smirk.

"Oh I know," Hera assures him, leaning over to soundly goose his nearest cheek, before shifting to his mouth more briefly hungrily before pulling back with a regretful sigh. "Probably not really the best time for this, Love, at the moment."

There's a long pause, than Kanan speaks up. "Actually..right now, Ezra's getting some much-needed sleep. And everyone else is busy."

"And finally venting all that rage apparently leaves you feeling horny?" Hera smirks at him, "Instead of pissy?"

"I'm less...distracted then I was before." Kanan responds back with dignity, leaning in for a longer, hotter kiss.

"Oh thank kriff." Hera murmurs shifting to straddle his lap, "It's been a long past few weeks."

"I take it you've been feeling neglected?"

Hera hmms, "You are no fun at all when you are pissy."

"That hasn't been your claim on the subject before."

Hera snorts. "Fine, you're no fun when you're pissy at anyone other than me." She kisses him again, smiling into his mouth indulgently. "Why in the hell else do you think I lent Ezra and Chopper the Phantom so easily. I'm a big fan of family therapy. If only on the hope it'll restore your libido again."

Kanan groans. "Sign me up." He sighs back and buries his face in the warm smooth juncture of her neck.


End file.
